I don’t know when I noticed.
The buzzing should have been a giveaway, I suppose,
That low hum of flittering wings nesting in your hair. Do you know how hard it is
To clean dead flies off your pillow each morning?
And I would’ve taken them as a sign of something
If I didn’t think they were just a symptom of the smell.
That dry heaved spoilt meat perfume that veiled you,
Thick and hot and dripping off with each staggered step,
Which I took as a result of the sores;
Those open and wet gristled flaps of face
That I thought were strange given your skin routine.
And I would’ve said something. Been real tactful, subtle.
But when I tried to bring it up I was brushing your hair,
(like I used to)
Now dry and dead, crackling and breaking like thin reeds as I stroked it,
And as I was about to ask if there was something different
(If you’d bought a new scent, changed your exfoliator, something light and kind and not at all angry)
A bit of your scalp came off in my palm.
And you looked at me with those big empty eyes.
How could I have hurt you then?
So I picked up the sloughed skin after you,
Sprayed you with perfume and insecticide every morning,
Kissed your mottled forehead and peeling lips,
And loved you, rotting girl,
Bells and wails be damned.